Winter Sleep
by fool of hearts
Summary: It was the sky he missed the most. TezuFuji


**Title: **Winter Sleep

**Rating: **PG-13, I'm thinking?

**Summary: **Looking at the sky hurts now that he can't reach it, but there's a little piece of sky right here by his side, waiting.

**Warning(s): **Um, a little violence and boy-kisses?

**Notes: **I wrote this a while ago. Why I didn't post it here, I don't know. But here it is! Oh, also, the title is from a song sung by Yuna Ito that I found halfway through writing this. Listen to it; it's gorgeous.

If he had been given a choice, Tezuka would have chosen to forget. Maybe he could have drowned memories in alcohol like many others, or even gone as far as suicide, but he was Tezuka Kunimitsu, and Tezuka Kunimitsu was a responsible man. He would not resort to getting drunk or killing himself, no matter how desperate he was.

There had once been a time when tennis was a temporary relief from everything his world had become. It never mattered what time it was, because if there wasn't an opponent, there was a solid brick wall, sturdy and reliable – everything his life seemed not to be sometimes.

Tennis had been his life. Rather, tennis had led _to _a life. Tennis had brought challenges and competitions and friends and excitement to a life that might as well have been death. He was not a romantic person by nature, but if he had to, he would say that tennis was the color in his very gray, very dull life.

Tennis had brought him to Fuji.

He would not have even recalled his name, had it not been for tennis. He knew he was in the tennis club, but he was so much smaller than most, and he didn't seem to be a very fierce opponent – arms too thin to hit a solid backhand, legs too slight to be able to run across the court to a ball. And his smile made Tezuka think that he wasn't serious at all.

And then he saw him play.

He never would be able to describe Fuji's tennis. He was graceful and beautiful, yes, but there was just something _there_, something captivating, something about the slope of his neck when he served and the inconspicuous tension in his hand when he waited for the return, something utterly _Fuji_ about his tennis, and that was all he could say about it.

Fuji himself was beautiful, with fair skin and fair hair, and a lilting voice. He was the only person Tezuka knew who could sing when he spoke and dance when he walked. But mostly, what Tezuka found beautiful was the glimpse of sky that flashes beneath azure eyes.

* * *

It was there, an unrelenting pounding in his ears, a throb in his head, a _thump _in his heart, that adrenaline. Because even if he couldn't play, he could still feel the racket in his rough, callused hands (hands time had smoothed over, dry without sweat, moistening it). He could remember days of glory; feel the sun beating down on his back of his neck and sweat running down his face; hear cheers of crowds and the grunt that followed the sturdy _thwack _of racket again tennis ball; see the smiles and the laughter and the joy in his teammates' faces; taste victory and the blue of the sky that seemed so close within reach.

It was the sky he missed the most.

For some, the feeling of even the most brutal pain would fade in time, a distant memory lost in the back of their minds. Tezuka, who wanted to forget more than anything, could feel the mind-numbing pain more clearly than anything else that last day of his final year in high school: a blinding, searing fire running up his arm, shooting straight through his spine. He could see blue sky becoming blood red, could even vaguely remember hearing the clatter of the racket hitting the courts.

He was forced to forfeit. There was no chance that he could continue, not like back in junior high, with Atobe. No, this was much worse, and he could feel it in every bone in his body. He could barely lift his arm without screaming. If he so much as tried to return one of Yukimura's balls, his arm would shatter.

Rikkai won the Nationals championship.

And even though no one ever said it out loud, he could feel the blame in his teammates' gazes, and that hurt the most. From the moment he stepped off the court, he felt like a traitor. He was useless, with his arm that couldn't do anything except hang there at his side. Shame and guilt burned inside of him, and it grew everyday. He couldn't look at a tennis ball without gagging, and he couldn't look at his teammates without a pressing urge in his throat trying to force a scream from him. And looking at the sky burned his eyes until tears threatened to fall.

Soon, the confines of four walls and a roof were needed to keep him from throwing himself from the highest building in Japan, and even then, it wasn't enough. The mere memories of days when all that mattered was winning and doing his best and getting better were enough to tear him apart from the inside, and then the disinfectant, sterile smells of the hospital started to overwhelm all senses, and the silence slowly started driving him to madness.

The team visited him the first few months, out of pity, Tezuka knew, and he hated it. Because he knew they actually hated him for making them lose; he hated himself for it. He didn't need them to remind him every damn week, sometimes more, when university schedules allowed it.

They would pack themselves into a small hospital room, all smiling, laughing, chatting about meaningless things, like how Atobe was ten times more arrogant than he was before, because now he was in charge of his father's empire, but he just came out, and it was really hilarious how the newspaper headlines were always bouncing between praising his magnificence and his new boyfriend; girly magazines guessing whether or not he would go for girls still (he swore he wouldn't); articles inspired by him named "How to Appeal to Your Gay Crush"; and polls on how long his relationships would last (currently, the record was four months, two weeks, five days, and ongoing, held by none other than Jirou, Hyoutei's very own narcoleptic). Tezuka wished they would stop, because he couldn't laugh with them, not when, even if he closed his eyes so that he couldn't see their betrayed eyes, there was still a constant, dull throb in his arm, reminding him of why they were there in the first place.

* * *

There wasn't an official confession, and neither had actually asked the other out. There was no designated starting point for their relationship. It just gradually happened. It was a mutual understanding, which was a perfect explanation, because that was everything that they were. They understood each other, when to give a little space and when they need to be close, just like they understood themselves. Tezuka just started walking Fuji back home, and Fuji stood a little closer to Tezuka during practice, little things that didn't speak loudly, but said more than words did. They didn't profess their adoration for each other on a daily basis like many couples (in fact, Tezuka had never told Fuji he liked him, and Fuji had never said the same to him, but it didn't matter, even if, sometimes, Tezuka thought Fuji would like to hear it. Fuji knew Tezuka liked him, and that was enough).

Even so, Fuji had dozens of anniversaries for them, silly little trifles that shouldn't have mattered, but they did to Fuji (or maybe he was just pretending they mattered, one never knew with Fuji), so Tezuka humored him by taking him to dinner for the First Time Tezuka's Fingers Brushed Fuji's On-Purpose-Not-Accident-Like-Tezuka-Claims Anniversary, and the First Kiss Anniversary (even Tezuka admitted this was rather important), and even the First Anniversary Dinner Anniversary (Tezuka was sure, when Fuji announced this was an anniversary, that Fuji was doing this simply for the free food, because, even though Fuji paid half when they go out after school, unplanned, Tezuka paid for everything on their anniversaries).

It was those things, and a little more, that made Fuji, _Fuji_. Little things, like his slender fingers and his long eyelashes and the way those long eyelashes fluttered and gleamed gold when those slender fingers rubbed his eyes early in the morning after "study sessions."

That, and Fuji's eyes were like heaven on earth.

* * *

Eventually, the team stopped coming. Schedules got busier and there were more assignments, but Tezuka knew the truth. They were truly running out of things to say. Once Atobe reached the one-year-mark with Jirou, it was no longer questioned that those two were truly going to stay together so long as Jirou thought Atobe was the comfiest pillow he had ever slept on, and there was only so much gossip Tezuka could hear about without being confused (who on earth was Tamaki-the-blond-idiot-majoring-in-business?), because you only heard so much in a hospital. They never spoke of tennis, and when they gossiped, they never spoke of anyone in Rikkai, in case old wounds reopened. And once they ran out of things to say, the silence pressed down on them, uncertain, cold, and awkward. Tennis had brought them together. And without tennis, there was really nothing keeping them there.

Soon, Fuji was the only one of the team left.

Fuji visited him every day; Tezuka didn't know why, but he does, and he usually stayed for as long as he could, until the last second of visiting hours (he even told the nurses who come to tell him to leave that there were still thirty seconds left, and could he please have a moment to say goodbye, which makes the flustered nurse leave, giving Fuji an extra minute, usually, to kiss Tezuka goodbye, long and slow), sometimes even hiding under the bed so that he can stay just a little longer.

Fuji was here now, and the thing about Fuji's visits was that with Fuji, he didn't talk just to talk. He was as comfortable with silence as Tezuka, even if he talked a little more and hummed sometimes (to keep himself company, Tezuka thought).

Fuji turned to him with those blue, blue eyes, and Tezuka could see the sky that was so far away now, could remember when he had felt, not melancholy and disappointment, but joy and exhilaration when he looked into those eyes, that sky. Fuji always had eyes like the sky, which was fitting, because if there was anyone who could get as close to the sky as Tezuka could, maybe closer, it was Fuji.

He looked into those eyes, and they flashed and glowed and shone, and he could see that only the sky would ever be painted that particular shade of free, flying blue.

Suddenly, Tezuka realized he hated him for it, for having all the potential he would never have, and wasting it when all he'd ever wanted was another chance to play. Tezuka hated Fuji, because Fuji could play and Fuji could fight, but Fuji chose not to. He hated Fuji because Fuji could fly, and all Tezuka had was a pair of broken wings.

He wanted to break Fuji, because, somehow, he knew that, somehow, it was all Fuji's fault that this happened, all his fault, and he wanted to tear him apart, to break him like he had been broken, wants to show him just how unfair the world really was. He wanted to make Fuji crumble to the ground, but most of all, he wanted to see those eyes shatter, to see the sky fall and the heavens collapse, the stars plunge to the ground until everything was pitch black.  
He wanted Fuji to feel the pain he had felt, wasting away in a world where he had nothing, where he could not even look up because it was too painful.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was reaching for Fuji, and wrapping his big hands (were they ever that big before then? Before they were right there by Fuji's face?) around his slender throat. He was pressing with his thumbs and squeezing with his palms, putting more and more pressure, because it felt _good_, all that pent-up frustration and anger (at himself? At Fuji?) being released. He was digging his nails into that pale flesh, and Fuji was not saying a word, just gasping a little, choking a little. Tezuka looked above his hands and caught Fuji's eyes, wide open and staring at him.

With a jolt, he realized what he was doing and lets go, but the damage was done. There was a bruise blossoming on the smooth skin, and even a little blood in crescent-shaped marks. Tezuka looked down and almost threw up; there was blood under his nails, and _he did that,_ he made those marks, he drew that blood.

His hands were shaking, and he could not look up from them, could not look away from that horrible sight of blood starting to dry under his nails. He did not know how long he stared, but when he looked up, Fuji was gone, and it was just him in that blank, white room.

The next day, Fuji didn't visit, but Tezuka was not surprised. What he was surprised at, however, was when his doctor comes in to tell him, not what exercises he would be doing for rehabilitation for the day, but that he was completely healed (as healed as he would get, anyway), and that he should better take good care of his arm this time, real good care, not like last time, because if he did that again, they would just amputate his arm to keep him from doing it again (if it didn't kill him first), and that he could leave.

_He could leave_.

In a half-numb state, he let the nurse do the final examinations, prodding and poking and commanding him to lift his arm and bend at his elbow, while the doctor explained what he should do at home to keep his arm in shape. He packed his clothes and tied his shoes, walked down the tiled floors while nurses stared (he didn't know, but he had been voted the unofficial Most Handsome Patient by the nurses, which was why he got the better hospital food (not that there was much of a difference), and then he was outside.

The sun was almost blinding, since he was not used to all that sunlight, having had a very small window in the hospital (by request; even through blinds, the sun and sky and the world continuing on brightly below him, as though someone's life, _his_ life hadn't just been destroyed, was too much), but he barely noticed, because there was somewhere he needed to be.

It was the first time he had really ran since his admittance into the hospital, and it felt good. Right. This was how it should be, pushing his body to do more, go faster, the wind rushing against his face. It was not tennis, but it was enough for now.

Fuji was not staying at home right now, because he was having it refurnished, was what he told Tezuka. He would have done it himself, but Tezuka talked him out of it, because the last time Fuji did a project like that alone, half his kitchen was left destroyed because Fuji got bored. So he was staying with Yumiko and her husband for now.

The door was answered on the first knock, which made Tezuka think they still understand each other, even after yesterday; a comforting thought. It was not Yumiko or her husband, but Fuji, standing there with a smile, even if it faltered a bit after seeing who it was.

For the first time, Tezuka hesitated. He hadn't thought this far. In fact, he hadn't really thought at all. Just that he needed to get to Fuji and that he had to do something, but what, he didn't know. Should he apologize? Kiss him? Prostrate himself before Fuji and beg for forgiveness?  
"I'm sorry," was what he said, and he thought it was enough. Their relationship was simple, even after everything; he never had to say much to make Fuji understand. Still, he added, acting on uncharacteristic impulsiveness, "I love you."

Fuji blinked in surprise, before laughing and taking Tezuka's hands and twirling them around and around, hair dancing like a halo about his beautiful face, the face of an angel. He pulled Tezuka into a kiss that sends them both reeling, and replied, "I love you too."

He was smiling when he said it, and his eyes were open, and he was _happy_; smiling, laughing. For the first time in a long time, the sight made him smile. He pulled Fuji into a second kiss, then a third, and a fourth.

The sky was laughing – a bright, joyful, carefree laugh – and he didn't know if it was the blue of Fuji's eyes or the blue of the sky that stretched far above them.


End file.
